Stratolaunch has been in the news again. This week they received their first 747 airplane they will use for parts to make their huge rocket carrier aircraft. Jeff Foust at NewSpaceJournal.com has some good quotes from the Stratolaunch guys from this week.

The Russian space agency has been looking for new cosmonaut candidates. Ria Novosti reports that in the first month of recruitment they have received less than 50 applicants. Contrast that with NASA’s 6000+ applicants – one has to wonder if the state of the US space program isn’t quite as bad as some people complain. Just think, we could be Russia.

In Orbit

John Glenn reflects on the 50th anniversary of his orbital flight, which was February 20, 1962.

Here’s a good photo from last week’s ISS EVA. Oleg Kononenko and Anton Shkaplerov are shown moving the large “crane” to a new location so it won’t be thrown away later with Docking Compartment 1, which is to be replaced by the MLM (via NASA Image of the Day).

My choice for this week’s awesome view from Cassini in Saturn orbit is this shot of the tiny moon Mimas in front of the planet’s rings

Cassini just passed periapsis of its 24-day, 161st orbit of Saturn. Orbit 162 starts on March 1st at apoapsis. I have a good feeling Cassini will make it to 200 orbits of Saturn and beyond.

Out There

How far have human radio signals traveled since the birth of the tech age? You may not have ever wanted to know that before now, but Emily Lakdawala has a beautiful graphical answer over at The Planetary Society blog. Space really is huge.

The big exoplanet news this week is GJ1214b, the planet that is a veritable water world. Here’s Bad Astronomy’s take on it and then Well-Bred Insolence’s take on it. The new data are based on spectra taken of the planet’s atmosphere showing the atmosphere to be 20% water.